Pay it Forward

It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. You all know I’m already a PIF type of person. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Sew Days

I've been really fortunate lately. At work, I've been playing the will I/won't I go travelling for business. At the last minute, I found out that I wasn't travelling. That means I get to go for a sew day!!

I've also recently been on a retreat with my guild. It was a blast. We got to spend the whole day sewing, some time shopping at a really great quilt shop, and stayed at a B&B with great service and food.

Here is Owloysious checking out the sewing.

I've been finishing a few things, but have entered the sewer's black out period (Christmas) so there isn't much to show. I can show you the ornaments I made for the ornament exchange. Each year, since 1994, I've been exchanging handmade ornaments with 3 other people. I'm now very lucky and have a tree full of beautiful handmade ornaments. Yes, I still have yet to finish mine off. It's funny how a deadline really helps to motivate the finishing.

I did however finish this quilt. A queen size no less! It's a crazy nine patch pattern made from all sorts of scraps that I had in the stash. (well, plus a few extras) You'll also see the Christmas tree without the ornaments. It's our first Christmas in the new place and our first time hosting Christmas! I couldn't resist putting up the tree as soon as it made it's way home, even if it is too early. The ornaments are slowly migrating to the tree. I'll post a picture when the migration is complete.

My Secret Santa parcel is on it's way! I can't post anything, my swap partner doesn't want to see it. But I can't resist a hint.... Big P, little P, what begins with P.

The Kindness of Strangers

I was meeting some friends downtown yesterday for dim sum. As I was driving there I realized that I had no cash for parking. I debated and decided to chance things. I'd park in the parking lot and run over to an ATM and then run back to get my ticket. Or at least, that was the plan. Instead! As I was pulling in to the parking lot, some people were pulling out and they gave me their parking ticket! And! As I was leaving, there were some other people coming in so I was able to pass the ticket onto them. Yeah!

All in all, one of those moments that restores your faith in humanity.

I haven't done much in the way of quilty things lately. But I'm frantically trying to finish the binding on a quilt. Tonight is our last night of the UFO challenge. The winner is declared tonight! Hopefully I finish it by in time to be counted.

I won't be able to post my Christmas swap offerings, my partner wants to be surprised. Me, I'm in awe of anyone with the discipline to wait and really doubt I'd actually wait until Christmas to open it. So, post away!

I will remember (I promise) to post this year's ornaments before I send them.

Kim Diehl

Some members of my guild and I got a special treat last night. We went to Kim Deihl's trunk show. We got to see and touch! many of the quilts she features in her books. If you get a chance to take a class with her or attend a trunk show, I'd recommend it. She was an engaging and funny speaker. We were allowed to take pictures, so I took one of each quilt. :) I have to say, as much as I love her patterns, if they were mine, I'd make very different colour choices. Though, I'm in awe of how she makes sooo many different fabrics play together so well in her quilts.

The Quilt of Belonging

This weekend I went with a few ladies from the guild to check out The Quilt of Belonging. It was amazing. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed. If you ever get a chance to check it out in person, GO.

It is a HUGE (36 x 3.5 metres) quilt each block represents one of the countries or nations that Canadians come from. There were even a few countries that we needed to look up on the map once we got home.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

Here we are at the beginning of the world tour. We managed an empty seat so even Owloysious had his own seat. :)




Our first stop was England. This is the inner courtyard of the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum. It was amazing. The plan was to go to the V&A, the Natural History museum and the science museum but instead it turned into a day at the V&A.



We spent a few days visiting friends in Tewksbury. This is one of the views from a little walk (hike) up a local hill. It hard to believe from this picture but 6 weeks prior, this view would have looked like you were looking at an ocean. (Tewksbury became famous this summer because of flooding)



The next stop was Sweden, where I had to take a picture of Ikea.



This year was the 300th anniversary of Linnaeus so there were all sorts of events going on. Plus, everywhere you went it was decorated in flowers in his honor.



This is just a typical street view and I thought it was pretty. The white building to the right was in a pretty famous movie a while ago. (I'm blanking on the name.)



This is the church in old Uppsala. It's pretty amazing. One of the first Christian churches in Sweden, right beside 4 Viking graves and a grove of oak trees where the vikings used to torture their enemies.



Our last county was Norway. This is a picture of Vigeland, if you get a chance to go there, it's a pretty amazing park. It's hard to imagine the scale of things and that one person could have created all the sculptures.



I couldn't resist a little shopping. This is the shopping I did once home. Hidden in here is a gift or two for my Secret Santa Swap. I hope once you receive your parcel you like it. I've been blog stalking and have quite a few ideas. I'm now suffering the best dilemma of narrowing down the choices.

While visiting I worked on a couple of projects. (Can't travel without something to work on) I've decided that I love train travel. You get time to work on things and you meet the nicest people when you have a project in hand. The apple core quilt (The curved one) was my first attempt at hand piecing. I've decided that curved piecing is a good one to learn on, it was much more forgiving of slightly crooked seams. The apple core quilt (front & back) was made from the Celebrate Spring charm pack. The other quilt top was made from the Summer in the City charm pack. Both are from moda fabrics. I've been recently inspired by all the doll quilt walls I've been seeing on some blogs and have been inspired to start my own as decoration for the new sewing room.

This is the shopping I managed while travelling. I got to visit a shop in each country. The fabrics are the same as you'd find here and more expensive so there wasn't too much temptation there. I did find some really interesting books and patterns and it was so much fun to see what people are working on in the different countries.

Travels

Well, I left my family behind and the other man and I went off to Victoria for the weekend. It was a quick little visit with my brother and sister in law. It was a fun visit but way too short. We went for a little tour of the harbour. Plus a tour of the quilt shop. Did a little shopping but didn't think to take any pictures. Here we are in the harbour.


This is my nephew Finley. Isn't he adorable!! I missed photos of Finley's favourite stop. We went to the marble slab ice cream shop. It was my first time and definately won't be my last.



These are the last of the gifts I'm finishing before heading across the pond. This table runner is for my granddad. The fabric in the rings is stylized trees and it reminds me of when my Nana and granddad used to come and visit us in Canada and we'd take them camping and fishing.


I also made a gross of notebook covers. These are for all the cousins.

I also made a SWAP deadline! I'm joining Donna's Christmas Swap. I've got a list of quilt shops to check out while on holidays and I'm hoping to find even more ideas while I'm over there. Though, I've got a couple already.... This will be so much fun! I can't wait!

Guild Meeting

In my guild we slow down for the summer but we still meet. As you can see, we take our quilting seriously. Here was our last meeting. (Coffee at Starbucks). Can you find Owloysious with the girls? He's such a flirt. :)


In the guild we're doing a border round robin. We each submit a centre block and then each group passes the blocks around and each person adds one border to what they receive. I'm in a group with 3 others so I get to do this for 4 blocks. This is my block.


This is the block I get to add the first border to. It's a lot of pressure, you can end up setting the tone for the quilt. I hope she likes the final product. Unfortunately, I can't show you it with my border, some of my guild members read this blog and we're supposed to keep the borders a secret, so I guess we'll all have to be in suspense until the unveiling.

I'm starting to prepare for our trip to see the relatives... So, the important things first. Any good quilt shops in England or Sweden?

A New Man in my Life

Introducing Owloysious. He's my new travelling companion and best of all he loves doing all the things I do! Here he is at a quilt show with some of the girls.


Checking out the Strawberry Shortcake.

Isn't this a perfect setting for a quilt show?

Some of the quilts that caught our eyes.

He was inspired by Mangetsu's Tutowlrial. They're just sooo cute, and I couldn't resist.

Too hot to quilt!

Wow, we're having a heat wave! I've now been shown the advantage of having your sewing room in the basement. It's too hot anywhere else.

Oh well, it looks like this weekend will be better. Prime quilting time. But today we broke into the 30's (Celsius) and tomorrow will be even hotter!

hmmm. Guess that means it's time to find the air conditioned goodness of a mall and go shopping. :)

Rolling into July

I'm on a roll! I've actually created some finishes. Yeah!!! Once that pesky BOM got ripped out and I got past needed to re-sew the entire thing! My sewing-block was lifted. Though, my sewing room has never looked nicer and more organized. :)

I'm now getting into the whole 'sewing binge before travelling'. Only 6 weeks and counting. Gulp.

There are sooo many things I want to finish before I leave....
1) Mormor's blommar
2) A wall hanging for my granddad
3) Journal covers for everyone
4) Bags for the girl cousins
5) Dolls for the cousin's children
6) Candies for everyone
7) My travelling companion (Owloysious )

And then there are the things I have to finish before I leave, like the next block in the round robin and the next BOM block.

hmmm. Oh darn, I guess I just have to sew and can't do any more house work... :)

Oh Happy Day

My machine is back from repair! I can sew again!!!

hmmm. Where to begin....

I have to unpick my last BOM. :( But once that's done, I think it's time to finish the gifts for my trip to see the relatives... Don't worry, I haven't told all of them about the blog, so some of the gifts will be safe to post.

Not Dead Yet

Moving is done!!! (Well mostly. Still have *some* boxes to unpack) But all of it is transferred to the new place and the old place is discharged.

I've been having fun setting up the new sewing room. It's painted a very girly pink! And, while shocked at just how much stuff I have, I've managed to stash it all somewhere. :) I've got two huge tables in there and one is setup at the right height for cutting. WOW. What a difference that makes. If you haven't done that yet, I highly recommend it.

Sadly I had to send my machine away to be cleaned and repaired. :( So, while my creativity bug is finally coming back, it's going to take a bit before I can implement it. Oh well, that's just more time to finish unpacking those last boxes, right?? :)

Nah....

It's May!!

Happy May 1!!

(In Sweden this is a holiday. I think we should all take the day off to celebrate as well)

I'm coming to the conclusion that these monthly goals may not really be working for me. But I'm tenacious, so I'll continue anyways...

April Goals:
Packing -- Lots of it done, some of it even moved.
Dolls -- I now have 4 headless dolls sitting around my house.

May Goals:
Move!!!
Paint & Setup the sewing room!!! Yeah!!!!!
Centre block for guild round robin

Object Lesson - Procrastination is Bad

I'm participating in a Block of the Month (BOM) with a deadline. Last Saturday was the day to finish block 3 and pick up the materials and pattern for block 4. All the previous week, each day, I'd tell myself that I really needed to get started on the block. Friday night, I was still telling myself the same thing. Soooo, Saturday morning at 5am, I finally woke up to start on the block. (My original plan was to wake up at 6am to start the block but I woke up early and couldn't get back to bed. Turns out that was a good thing) Everything that could go wrong, did! I started with a fresh new needle. Threaded the machine, loaded the bobbin, cut my blocks, and I was ready to go. I got 1/2 a seam done and the thread broke! This pattern continued for a while so I changed threads, still breaking!! Rethreaded the bobbin, still breaking!!! Cleaned my machine, still breaking!!! Though, if there was a market for lint, quilters would make a fortune. It wasn't that long since I cleaned the machine and I pulled out a brand new felt pad from the machine. I continued on with this pattern because the block *had* to be done that day and I was leaving the house at 8am to watch my friends kids for the day. Then, finally, the thread didn't break! But the needle did. UGH. It's not the best example of piecing, but the block is finally done. TADA!!

I learned my lesson from that morning and promptly started working this month's block. Much much better. No problems with the machine and the block is done! Yeah!!!

This last picture are the fabrics for the next project.... (And I'll keep you guessing for a bit.)

Finally Fabulous Finishes!!

Wow, April already. This time with pictures to show!! I figured out the camera. It was a good thing it was simple to use. The instructions and the camera are in Swedish (it was my uncle's camera) and I've packed my Swedish/English dictionary.

This month, I'll count any and all finishes as bonuses and my only real goals are to pack. 3 weeks and counting!!!! :)

The first picture is my sewing area. It's a little corner of the living room. You can see it beside the sofa and yes, it has also been known to double as the kitchen table. :)

This next picture is the top of mormor's blommar. It's quite a long table runner but my grandmother has quite a long sideboard.

These last two pictures are the front and back of the snails trails quilt I finished. Though all the guild members are probably sick of seeing it by now.... (Yes, I piece backs when I don't have enough leftovers to make a whole back. It's my method of stash busting.) They're backwards, so you get to see the back first.

Front of the quilt

Time Flies

Wow. It's scary how quickly time can get away from you. I haven't been feeling very motivated these days. Work has gotten crazy busy and chaotic. Plus, packing and moving has started to take over the house. This is making it a little harder to carve out quilting time.

Even with all that, I managed to finish the top for mormor's blommar. Plus! I borrowed a digital camera and once I translate the instructions (they're all in Swedish, yup, long story) I'll be able to download the pictures. I've got one of my current sewing area. All the sewing room makeovers have before pictures so I figured everyone could see the living room/kitchen/desk area. :) And one of mormor's blommar.

Right now I'm on a ssssslllooowwww course. The information will be useful but they could up the course pace several degrees.

Smarch

First! I got my very first comment! From Dee. Hi Dee.

She asks why do we need to limit UFOs? I guess we all have our limits and while it's good to discover them we shouldn't hide behind them. I have limits on the number of UFOs I can handle for a few reasons. Mainly space. (Both physical and creative) If I have UFOs taking up storage space I have less room for fabric. Plus when I go to sew, I see the UFOs around and they're talking to me. Telling me that they're projects I started and need to finish. If I have too many, they stop talking and start yelling. When all the shoulds are drowning out the creativity; that prevents me from starting something I'm inspired to do .

Plus, I just love the sense of accomplishment when I finish something. :)

It's March already. Wow. February flew by. I'm trying to decide if March came in like a lion or a lamb. It's snowing outside and has been pretty steady all day, but it's only -9 (Celsius). So, it's a tough call. I'll choose lion, just because I want spring to show up early this year. :)

Well, I didn't finish anything I was hoping to do this past month, but did taking on some unexpected projects. Most notably, buying a house. Yeah!!

I'm almost finished the top of Mormor's blommar and just finishing the binding on the snails trails quilt, so I'm adding another project to the list for March. Dolls! I wasn't going to make anything for my cousin's kids when I go to visit them, but then I saw this pattern... Another project is born.

Plus! I'll be picking up the digital camera either today or tomorrow, so pictures should be coming soon.

February

Even though it's not the end of the month quite yet, I'm not very hopeful about finishing my wishlist for February. It appears that the month was much shorter than the list. Part of the problem was the distraction of house hunting. The other part is all those other blogs! I read these blogs and am so inspired to start new things (and not finish the other stuff I have on the go).

I'm almost finished Mormor's blommar and Snails Trails. They may or may not get done this month... For March, I want to add a brand new project to the UFOs to finish. Maybe that'll help with the desire for all those other projects. It's that or I just created a new UFO. :)

Home Owners

Well, much much quicker than anticipated, we're home owners now. We started looking and found a great place and they accepted our offer! I'm still in shock. We've got a couple of months before we can move in. If I was being organized, I'd take that time to declutter and pack. But I think, since I'm still in shock, I'll get back to some quilting.

Still have nothing crossed off on the things I was hoping to get done this month. Looks like the list is longer than the month. Though, I've almost finished the snails trails quilt. Just working on the binding and I have 4 of 5 flowers connected on Mormor's blommar.

I'm working on the digital camera. Since things are a little more up in the air than originally anticipated, I think I may be able to borrow my mother's for a few months. :)

Gulp

Wow. Life sure changes fast. I now have something to distract me from quilting. Might be buying a place to live. One the one hand, yeah! A place of our own. Sewing curtains, decorating, etc. One the other hand, gulp. A huge mortgage. How do other people manage with such a huge debt hovering over them? I guess you get used to it. Or remind yourself daily that it's not bad debt. :)

On the quilting front, I've got the middle of the table runner together! Though, I'm so inspired by all the other cool projects I've been seeing lately and the presents I want to make for my trip to visit the family that I'm having a hard time finishing the stuff I've started. And I really want to finish some stuff. Especially if we're going to be moving! I guess that's why we end up with so many UFOs. Any ideas on preventing the creation of more UFOs?

Guild & UFO Challenge

Finished the Purple & Blue flowers! Started working on the mortar in between the flowers. I've almost got the Yellow flower outlined.

One thing this blog shows, is compared to the other bloggers, I am so not a prolific quilter. But, I try to do a little each day. I'm really loving this handwork. It's so easy to have things setup and just pick it up while watching some TV, or waiting for something.

Tonight is our Guild meeting. Tonight we're meeting at a member's home for show & tell. I'm sure before the end of the night, I'll have many more projects on my wish list.

In our Guild we're doing a UFO challenge. It's really helping keep some of us on the straight and narrow. Finishing off some of our projects, working out of the stash, etc. It's be interesting to see if doing this challenge saves money or encourages more spending.

For our challenge, we've split into two teams. Each team is competing for points. You get points, depending on size, for anything that is finished (that you've brought to guild for show & tell). You get bonus points for completing anything on the UFO list you submitted at the beginning of the challenge. When the challenge ends in September, the team with the least points provides the food for our summer wrap-up and the team with the most points gets bragging rights. :)

Mormor's Blommar

I've been working away on Mormor's Blommar. This started off as an I'd like to try English paper piecing and has now morphed it's way into a table runner. I'm planning on visiting my Grandmother this year and this is intended as a present for her. (If I finish it in time!)

I finished the green flower! So now I just have the purple and blue flower and the mortar inbetween them. Then the top is done!

Once I figure out the picture thing, I'll start posting pics.

The title Mormor's Blommar translates to 'Grandmother's flowers'. I thought it appropriate given it's the Grandmother flower garden design.

First Post

Very first post. Wow!

This blog exists to share in quilting adventures. I've been inspired by the quilting blogs I've been reading and want to get in on the action.

Currently I have way too many UFOs to count and am dedicating this year to finishing them.

Right this second I'm working on a table runner using English paper piecing hexigons.